QT: UK - Chapter 10 WIP

“Anas, what the fuck are you doing!”

A woman’s voice shouted from somewhere very nearby, fraught and demanding, but Aoife couldn’t see where from. Instead, from where she lay, wet in the mud, her attention was very much on the dulled metal of the shotgun barrels pointed down towards her. The firearm was a dated, functional thing at best, the sort that she could only imagine must have sat half-used in a farmer’s shed for years, but the middle eastern looking man holding it certainly didn’t seem like the sort to spend much time in the country shooting at pheasants. The thin coat, high street gloves and dirt smeared jeans he wore definitely didn’t scream that he was someone in his element. Nor did the inexpert way he cradled the gun with one hand as he attempted to readjust a poorly fitting dust mask around his dark face. No, instead the tall awkwardness screamed that he was someone who felt very out of his depth, and Aoife couldn’t tell if that made him more or less dangerous.

“You get your kicks from roughing up girls half your size, that it Big Man?”

The reaction to the indignity of finding herself on the floor came out of Aoife like a reflex. She was pretty sure antagonising him wasn’t the smartest thing in the world, but her mouth worked before her brain could; as if it was doing its best, along with the glare on her face, to keep her from noticing how fucking scared she was.

The man, who she presumed was called Anas, looked back over his shoulder, nerves obvious as he protested to his companion. His voice surprised Aoife with how young it was, laced with a posh southern accent that suggested whatever his roots were he was at least 2nd or 3rd generation. “‘If you think she’s going to leave, sort her out,’ you said.”

“I didn’t mean like that!”

“What was I meant to think that you meant?!”

Although the gun remained pointed far too much in her direction for even Aoife to feel bold or stupid enough to try something, the man was distracted for long enough for her to push herself up onto her elbows and reorient herself. Making her way over from behind the same crest of rocks that Anas must have emerged from, was a woman not much taller than herself, although she was clearly more at home out here than either Aoife or her assailant. Her coat and boots actually appeared suitable for the hillside for a start, the sort of thing she could imagine belonging on a farm, and she half expected a sheep dog to appear alongside the woman. Unlike Anas however, she was mask free, with a drawn-up scarf the only attempt at covering a young face that was all tired angles and sallow lines.

Aoife’s beanie had fallen away as she’d gone to ground, leaving the frayed ends of her hair to spill loose about her face, while her own Palisade issued respirator had been pushed down slightly towards her chin. Fresh, hillside air tickled at her nose through the broken seal, and although for a moment her instinct was to grab her hat before anything else, feeling naked without it, she had enough presence of mind to attempt to fix the askew mask first. As she sat up to do so however, the other woman picked up her pace, closing the distance to them while shouting at Anas.

“Now she’s on the ground don’t just let her sit up,” the woman said, her own voice carrying a  Yorkshire demanding twang.

He looked back at her, spreading his arms slightly in consternation. He was also younger than Aoife realised at first, still somewhere in his twenties and it was evident he had no small amount of agitation for the situation he found himself in. And as he spoke that anxiety swelled up, argumentative. If this was something they’d planned for he was doing a terrible job. “Why do you think I know what it is I’m meant to be doing? It’s not as if I’ve done this before”

There wasn’t an immediate answer however, as the other woman ignored him for a moment. Instead, she opted to cover the final few steps towards Aoife, and harshly shoved the Scottish girl back flat into the mud with a boot on her shoulder.

“Hey! Get the off me you fucking head case!” Again, the words spilled out of Aoife long before her head had a chance to decide if they were a good idea or not. “I don’t know what your problem is.”

The other woman glared at her from beneath a tangle of long blonde hair, daring her to keep talking, then looked at Anas and realised whatever confused decisiveness had led to him charging Aoife had stalled entirely. His feet were beyond cold and his body language screamed equivocation while the shotgun fell lower, losing intent as he spoke. “At least let her fix her mask.”

“You’re joking right,” came the curt reply.

“I don’t know?” The Arabic man responded,  I told you this was a terrible idea.”

“Yeah, well, you’re also the one who said that the world wasn’t leaving us with good ones.” Her tone was harsh, as if she felt Anas needed to grow some backbone but at the same time wasn’t surprised to find that he wasn’t. Her attention caught the indecision with which he held the shotgun, and with an exasperated noise, reached to take it from him even as she moved him aside brusquely with her shoulder. Somewhere, at the back of her mind, Aoife found herself with an unwanted twinge of sympathy for Anas as he shifted uncomfortably in the face of his more overbearing friend. He felt more awkward with every moment, with too many soft edges for this sort of hard faced work.

If she’d let that thin crack of understanding remain for more than a moment she might have wondered just what path led someone like him to being here like this. But with the woman now standing over, framed by steel grey sky and with her silhouette made broader and more imposing by the thick coat she was wearing, the feeling didn’t last long enough. Instead, Aoife reached out and clung to the petulant anger that was the only thing keeping her own nerves from leaving her to sink into the mud.

“You’re taking that out of context,” he mumbled, half apologetically.

“And you’re forgetting what they’re doing down there.” There was a tip of the woman’s head back down the hill in the direction of the Hall, small in the near distance. But her hands remained fixed on the gun, held towards Aoife with all the purpose Anas had lacked. “If you want answers they aren’t just going to give them to you.”

Anas turned to glance back towards Taymont as the wind picked up, pulling green strands of Aoife’s hair across her face. The pause was long enough for the engineer to realise just how cold she was starting to get and she found herself pushed to speak again, almost reasoning that no matter how much it annoyed the other woman it was better than freezing to death in a puddle.

“Look, I don’t want to interrupt whatever this is between you two but I’d quite like to get up off the fucking ground now, if it’s fine with you.”

“You really need to stop talking unless you’re being spoken to.” The woman was impassive, before jabbing the end of the shotgun into the bottom of Aoife’s ribs.  “Give me your ID.”

Aoife found herself glaring back rather than moving, only for the words to be repeated slower and more firmly, as if she was too stupid to have understood the first time.

“Give me your ID.”

Carefully, the green haired engineer reached into her jeans pocket, reaching for the NEBC lanyard she’d stopped actually wearing weeks ago, after anyone had stopped caring enough to check. Reluctantly, she offered it upwards with an outstretched hand, only for the side of her nature to win out as the other woman’s fingertips brushed the plastic. With a defiant flick of her wrist, Aoife tossed the badge aside, throwing it several feet away to land with a soft slap in the mud. Pointless, yes. Stupid, very. But even so, seeing the displeased exasperation creeping out from behind the woman’s pulled up scarf made her feel just a little better. The world was leaving her needing small victories, even before she’d been waylaid, no matter how childish they were.

“Oops.”

The frustrated sigh from the other woman was audible, even though it was only a small ask for Anas to fetch it from the nearby ground and bring it to her expectantly waiting hand so she could read it. “Aoife Ryan…you don’t look like much of a head engineer.”

“Aye, well it’s not like I was anyone’s first choice.” She only noticed the melancholy in her own voice after the words had already passed her lips. And for the first time since she’d noticed something was wrong up there on the hill, her thoughts failed to keep the terrible shape of what she’d learnt from the harddrive at arms reach. The memory of it came at her with a jolt, and she tried to do her best to shove it away again. Luckily, she had plenty of practice at burying feelings she told herself she didn’t have the luxury of being able to deal with.

Besides, if Ethan said it was going to be ok…

Fuck. Ethan. Would he worry if something happened to her up here? Would he come looking for her?

It was a couple of seconds before Aoife realised the blonde with the gun hadn’t immediately replied to her, and she looked up to see genuine agitation from her for the first time. “What do you mean you’re not…” Apparently she had caught some implication in what Aoife had just said that had bothered her. “Shit, they’re just as desperate as the rest of us.”

The rest of them? Had she thought that the NEBC was part of something that was keeping itself above what was going on with the rest of the world? That there was some greater context to all this bullshit she might be able to find here? If so, Aoife could see how knowing that they were also relying on people like her just to keep going would disarm the other woman. If you were imaging villains, it must be scary to realise they were down in the muck with you.

Anas was the next to speak, his tone sounding as if he was trying to bargain with the situation as much as he was with his companion. “This was definitely a bad idea. Maybe she’s just as out of her depth as we are.”

That, at least, was hard for Aoife not to see the humour in. “Mate, no-one’s as out of their depth as you are.”

He did his best to ignore her, but allowed a brief flicker of hurt show regardless before continuing. “Hayley, She might not even know - “

“No! It doesn’t matter.” The reaction from the woman Aoife finally had a name for was laced with a swell of anger, hot, wounded and emphatic. And for the first time since taking the gun, Hayley looked away from Aoife and gave a sharp gesture in the direction of the hall. “They’re still lying to us down there! You know they’re lying to us. She is still part of that. People deserve to know whatever’s going on.”

Aoife knew she wasn’t as astute at reading people as Ethan was, but even she could pick up on the subtext to what Hayley was saying. ‘I deserve to know what’s going on’. There was too much emotion sitting ragged on the surface of what she was saying to escape that some sort of pain had brought her this far. The worst part however was the unpleasant feeling that Hayley was right. Aoife knew now just how much was being kept from the public about DuoHalo and just how ruinous it was, and like it or not she had been a part of that for months. They had been lying to people. An unimaginably huge and cruel lie that she had no sense of what it must have been like to actually be living through.

What’s the sane way to react to a conspiracy theory when those lies are real anyway?

She had always poked fun at the trope of how the bad guys in movies had minions willing to do their dirty work for them, but wondered if she’d somehow stumbled into being one in someone else’s story. Standard issue, with her Palisade Services coat for and boots a comically unflattering uniform. But then, Ethan knew; and for whatever reason she wasn’t ready to accept the idea that he would allow something like that without a purpose. If he had, then the idea of him she had in her head didn’t exist and the only thing keeping her going would burn away with it.

With the gun pointed with less intent as Hayley looked away, Aoife tried to sit up again as her own guilt pushed her to attempt to defuse things. “Lady, I don’t know what you think I-” she started, only for the words to be replaced by a cry as Hayley returned her boot to Aoife’s chest, misreading the green haired girl's intent. The gesture was even rougher than before, jarring Aoife’s head back against the ground. Her vision swam, and the taste of blood filled her mouth as she bit her tongue.

“Do not fucking test me.”

It might have been a misunderstanding brought on by Hayley’s own emotions fraying, but Aoife still felt her desire to cooperate gutter away. Instead she simply locked eyes with the blonde woman, as if they were competing to be the one who was most pissed off at the world around them. It was a contest that only ended as Hayley’s chest shook with a heavy rattling cough, forcing her to turn away. Anas stepped towards her with concern, but she pushed him back with her free hand.

“I don’t care how bad the world is.” She spoke insistently, as if she needed to prove her resolve not just to Aoife and Anas, but herself too. “I’m not just letting it end around me without a fight. There has to be some sort of meaning we can still give to things.”

Again, Aoife’s anger spoke for her. “Even if I did know something, which I don’t, I sure as fuck wouldn’t be telling some mental bitch up a hill.”

“She doesn’t exactly look in the mood to talk,” Anas said, trying to play peacemaker.

Hayley gave another cough, less intense, but enough to spend the last of her patience. “Then we get her in the car.” The statement was simple enough, but Anas immediately blanched. “Don’t look at me like that. Don’t pretend that you didn’t know what ‘finding someone to get answers from’ meant.”

“I didn’t think we meant kidnapping her.”

“No, you damn well knew that’s what it might mean.”

The way Anas looked away, unable to maintain his gaze towards either of them came as its own admission. For a moment, the sensation of hearing two people looming above her, talking about her impending abduction, threatened to be unreal enough to detach Aoife from her indignation. But Hayley spoke, and it was enough to ground her back in her distaste for the other woman.

“Are you going to talk?”

She knew she should. The rational part of her tried to reason that she had no reason not to, let alone when her own safety was on the line. And yet her mouth failed to move, unwilling to feel like she was yielding to the treatment she was receiving. She was too fucking tired. Had put up with too much over the last few months. She didn’t care how stupid it made her. If the world was going to push her, sometimes she just needed to push back. And even if she did talk, what guarantee did she have that they were going to just let her go. They all felt far too committed to choices they’d blundered themselves into.

Hayley waited for her reply, and sighed when it failed to come. “No? I didn’t think so. Get her up”

Dutifully, Anas stepped forward, stooping down to help Aoife, obviously placing himself between the stricken engineer and the barrels pointed at her. Briefly, Aoife considered taking her chance to try and make a break for it, but even her stupidity had limits, and even if Hayley’s shotgun posturing was a bluff, she knew there was no way she could make it all the way back to the Hall without one of them catching up to her. Instead she simply watched him as he reached over, trying to offer her what care he could manage by adjusting her slipped respirator back around her face. Making eye contact was still more than he could muster however, even as he helped her to her feet.

“I’m sorry about this, really,” Aoife heard him mumble. But the apology was clearly as much for himself as it was for her.

“Yeah. I’m sure you are.”

*****

The low conversation from the McNamara sisters quietened fully in the back of the car as it pulled up the final approach towards Taymont Hall, stilled by their uncertain anticipation. Ethan had insisted on driving Nia’s EV, given how exhausted she’d allowed herself to become, although any surprise at how easily she’d relented into letting him do so was short lived, as she’d quickly found herself snoozing in the passenger seat next to him. It turned out even she had her limits. What caught him more off guard however, as the ivy covered walls crept into view, was how glad he was to be back.

It had been mid afternoon before they’d be able to return up the motorway, after waiting for Alex to wake following her imprinting. And even after she had stirred Ethan had been keen not to pressure her. It was the last thing he thought she needed after the night before, and he wanted to make sure she had as much patience as anyone could offer her. And so even with the desire to see Aoife tugging, insistent, at the back of his mind, he had given Alex and Jess some space together, lingering in the spare bedroom as the redheads talked.

Ethan had tried practising what he thought he might say to Alex, trying to pick the exact right tone of easy reassurance. Not that he was able to put the effort to use. Instead, when Alex did come to find him on her own, almost an hour later, it was fresh from the shower. The sight of her dropping her towel at the bedroom door was enough to make any sentiment he had prepared catch in his throat for long enough for the redhead to close in on him, and cut him off with a long, grateful kiss.

Her first words to him were a heartfelt, “thank you,” before following them up softly as she leant against him. “I don’t want to talk about it. Not right now. I just…want to feel wanted…Like I’m not just a mistake you’re stuck with.”

It would have been easy to promise her she wasn’t. But the intent expression that looked back at him made it obvious that doing so was going to hurt her. She knew this wasn’t something any of them had planned for and her trust wasn’t going to be built on hollow guarantees. He couldn’t be sure how Alex would fit with Nia or the others, or tell her with any certainty things would be a fairytale. This was one leap of faith that hadn’t even had the pale comfort of the algorithm. But he could do what she asked.

They’d fucked again, this time with Alex on top, as she rode him through the post-imprint high that Gemivax has left each of his partners with; yearning curves strained. And when they’d come it had been together, arriving there naturally without the vaccine’s help. Although Ethan was pretty sure that without it he wouldn’t have managed to climax with quite as much force as he did, given it was for the fourth time since pairing with Jess the evening before.

Then, as the drive back had gone on, Ethan had begun to realise that what he’d mistaken for Alex remaining reserved after her ordeal, was actually much closer to her personality than he’d first thought. She didn’t say much, certainly not compared to the awkward energy of Jess, but what she did was almost without exception wry and sarcastic. Something she confirmed with a dry aside as he began to draw the car up towards the front of the hall.

“Well living here’s going to be utter torture.”

Beside her, Jess’ nervous chattering had hushed as she took in the grandeur of the hall, but her sister’s sarcasm drew her attention back with a chuckle.

“It did start to lose some of its charm after being stuck here for months,” Ethan replied.

“And that is your first red flag” Alex’s tone was flawlessly deadpan as she turned to her sister. “He’s saying he gets bored of too much of a good thing.”

Jess laughed again as Ethan drew them to a halt on the hall’s gravelled car park. And as he did, he gave a glance into the rear-view mirror and found the green of Alex’s eyes looking back at him. He offered her a smile, and found that the one she gave him return didn’t seem half as forced as he expected.

On the other side of a small, unkempt flower bed from the car park stretched one of Taymont’s few lawns that hadn’t been claimed by the sprawl of NEBC gear, with green stretching out towards where the smudge of muddy hills rose to meet the sky. It was there that Ethan spied Farah, the former cricketer still oblivious to their arrival as she bowled a ball across the turf before jogging after it. She had mentioned to him, briefly before he left, that the shoulder injury that had ended that career seemed easier in the aftermath of her own vaccination. But even with the segments they’d filmed for their own broadcast he didn’t get the sense she had quite let herself believe in the data from the US that showed the serum was known to trigger tissue regeneration in some recipients. Which made his satisfaction at seeing how freely she was wheeling the joint with experimental ease even greater. He took a moment to watch her, even as the sound of the McNamara’s climbing out the car caused Nia to stir in the passenger seat beside him, and he only stopped as he heard Jess shout out.

“Shit! Moxie!”

They’d fetched Jess’ jack russell to bring with them, but what patience the dog had been able to show to that point, travelling in the rear of Nia’s car, evaporated at the sight of open grass to run into. All it had taken was the boot door to be opened and Mox had taken off past her owner, bolting in the direction of Farah as if the cricket ball she was throwing was an invitation. Jess rushed after her, and watching the artist as he also stepped out the car, it was Ethan’s turn to laugh. There was something endearingly normal about the sight of Jess struggling to keep up with her pet, and the looming embarrassment of whatever first impression she was about to make on Farah. And it was almost enough to allow himself to think that things might-

“This is the part where you say how you feel like things might all work out somehow.”

Alex stood next to him, having collected her bag from the boot, and the wry note in her voice remained as she spoke and cut through his thought before he could finish it. Somehow she’d  managed to vocalise exactly what he was thinking, and seeing his surprise offered him a small smirk.

“You get this look about you every so often,” she explained, “like you’re caught up in your own thoughts. Seemed a safe guess that Jess would be causing good ones.”

Nia appeared to his other side, producing a cigarette and lighter from the pocket of a well tailored jacket. “Is he doing that thing where he gets the thoughtful little wrinkle between his eyes?”

“He was. It’s more of a frown now.”

There was the feeling of soft lips pressed against his cheek as Nia leaned in to reassure him. “Evie loves it when you do that, you know? You’re cute when you’re being introspective.”

It was hard to muster much in the way of earnest protest and he resisted the urge to find some sort of playful quip back. Instead he opted to simply let Alex have her moment with Nia and set to unloading the rest of their bags. And by the time he was done, carefully carrying Jess’ drawing tablet to sit with the small pile of luggage next to the Hall’s entrance, Farah was striding across the lawn, cradling Mox in one arm. Jess trailed behind her, attempting to offer apologetic explanations of how her dog was normally better behaved, only for them to be brushed aside as unneeded by Farah. They’d spent several minutes attempting to chase Moxie down, something that the athlete had apparently loved every second of, and she beamed as the animal strained up to lick at her face.

“I did wonder who was going to kiss me first when you got back. I’m not sure this is the answer I was expecting.”

“Sorry. Moxie’s enthusiastic and…” Jess started a characteristically awkward reply but was silenced by Farah.

“I swear if you apologise one more time I’m going to leave you out.”

The short redhead blushed, seemingly not having realised that she was on Farah’s list of people to be kissed. The pair had interacted a little during Jess’ brief, remote courtship with the group, but hadn’t quite expected the other woman to be as forward with her interest as she was. Ethan considered sparing Jess’ blushes from his least inhibited partner but, before he could, he found Mox being pressed into his arms by the cricketer instead.

“Here, hold the dog for a second.”

As Moxie wriggled, Ethan watched as Farah turned and stooped to feather the barest, tenderest of kisses on the younger woman’s lips. Jess gave a sigh like exhale as they parted, a contented look on her face even as her cheeks flushed further.

“I know your night didn’t go how anyone wanted it to, but you’re part of the team now. And that means I’ve got your back, understand?” Farah was predictably sincere with her tone, and Ethan didn’t doubt she meant every bit of it, even as she turned to Jess’ sister. “Alex, right? That goes for you too.”

For a moment, Alex seemed a little uncomfortable at the attention, as if the idea of being paired with Ethan enough to deal with that she hadn’t even found the emotional bandwidth to consider the rest of the team. Less than 24 hours ago she’d been screaming on a bathroom floor as the world closed in around her, and even as she forced her body language to relax, Ethan still wondered how much was going to be too much too soon for her. And he realised he wasn’t even sure if her Delphi questionnaire said she was interested in other women.

“Farah…” he interjected, only for Alex to speak for herself, doing her best to steady herself behind dry humour.

“It’s fine. As long as it’s not too awkward if I say no to the kiss? I wouldn’t want you to enjoy it too much and upstage Jess.”

“Of course, that’s the last thing I’d want,” Farah said, finally picking up on the guarded discomfort Alex was carrying with her and gracious enough to play along with the refusal. “I’ll settle for a hug instead?”

Alex nodded, eventually, and quickly found powerful arms slung around her shoulders as Farah drew her reassuringly close, holding the embrace just long enough for the redhead to allow herself to ease into the contact. And when Farah spoke next her words were simple, soft and earnest.

“Welcome to the team.”

From her expression, it was possible to see how the sharpest edges of Alex’s anxiety were smoothed by the contact, and Ethan had to resist parroting her words about believing things might be ok back at her. Farah’s tone however turned more serious as she turned to Ethan.

“Evie wanted to know when you were back. She didn’t say why but it seemed more important than just being desperate to jump you.”

Something about the way she spoke brought back the familiar sensation of being torn in two directions for Ethan. He could tell she was doing her best to understate things, but there was a hint to her voice that betrayed a weight to the statement and just how badly Evie needed to see him. And at any other time, his instinct to go straight to her would have kicked in, but in the moment, the larger part of him couldn’t ignore Aoife any longer. The part of him that had been demanding he go and find the green haired girl, louder with every moment since he’d passed back through the hall’s gates. He’d forced himself to take the extra few minutes to not leave Jess and Alex feeling abandoned on the doorstep, but even that had limits while he knew she needed him.

“I’ve something I need to take care of first,” he heard himself saying, as he passed Moxie to Jess. “If you see her, tell her I’ll catch up with her as soon as I can.”

“She really did make it sound like…”

Ethan caught Farah’s lips before she could say anything to make his priorities feel any more split; a long deep press that drew a pleased moan from her before it ended and reminded his body just how much it had missed the feel of her.

“I believe you,” he said. “If Evie says it’s important then that’s all I need to hear. But this really can’t wait any more than I’ve already made it. I’ll make it up to her.” Whether it was the conviction he said things with, or simply the sway of his kiss leaving Farah’s mind weak, but she relented. “Just promise me you’ll make this one get some rest,” he added, lightly pushing Nia into Farah’s arms to cover his own exit.

He left them, with the sounds of Nia’s protests to Farah that she was fine and had work to do following after him. Knowing Aoife he suspected she was going to be found in her workshop, buried away in the Hall’s basement, but it wasn’t there that he headed first. He’d received a text from the newly re-nationalised Royal Mail while he was away and had asked Evie to leave the delivery it had announced to wait for him out of the way in his old room. The Pokemon plush he’d ordered for her had originally been meant as an apology when he still thought she was mad at him and although the sentiment had changed a little, the fact that he wanted something thoughtful for her hadn’t. He didn’t really know what a ‘Turtwig’ was, other than the soft turtle creature that looked up at him with wide eyes as he opened the package, he just knew she liked the cute green ones, and he hoped it was endearing enough to make her smile even with everything that was going on.

It was as he turned to leave the room, however, ready to make his way to the old service elevator that led down to Aoife’s basement, that Evie appeared at his doorway.  The sight of her alone was enough to briefly ease the tight knot of anticipation that had collected at the pit of his stomach, but the relief was short lived as he caught her expression. There was concern there, measuredly written across her normally serene demeanour alongside a sad tug of her lips. It was the sympathy behind the brown of her eyes that really caught him however, as he realised whatever she was about to say was going to come with gentle consolation.

He searched her face for answers, and spoke only when he couldn’t find them.

“What’s happened?”

“We’re still working that out. This morning…” Evie started to speak, but as she did so Ethan glanced downwards, his notice happening to fall upon the fact that his partner was holding something. There, held between painted fingernails and caked in dirt, was a starkly familiar beanie. One he wasn’t used to seeing without green hair poking out from beneath it. He tried to find insight in Evie’s expression again, but his mind slipped on implications like a tyre spinning in mud and he found himself taking an involuntary step backwards.

“According to one of the other engineers, Aoife went to run repairs on one of the dishes…”

Evie kept talking, but her words sounded as if they were coming from behind glass. Dimly he heard her mention how they’d found her toolbag, and phone when no-one had heard from her. Or how they already had people looking for her. But most of it bounced off him, lost as soon as he’d heard one sentence that kept ringing through his head as the world closed around him.

“We don’t know what’s happened, but right now, Aoife’s missing.”